Communication Compartmentalization

We live in a time in which we have multiple ways to communicate with people. We go through our days texting, tweeting, calling, emailing and snap chatting. Most of the time we communicate through these means with the same people at the same time. We have reached a point when we can be having multiple conversations with the same person that do not overlap.

Only until very recently were there only 2 or 3 ways to communicate with someone. Face-to-face, telephone, and written forms like letters. However in the last 2 decades our ways to communicate have exploded and our psychology is trying to play catch up.

We are able to have conversations about completely unrelated topics simultaneously with the same people. Someone could be talking about the newest iPhone on Reddit and then quickly switch to a simultaneous conversation about which Zelda game is better between Majoras Mask and Ocarina of Time in a FB chat window. While at the same time texting these same friends about where they should go eat that night. We have come to a time in which we have conversational compartmentalization in a capacity never before experienced. In a weird and very real sense, it is as if our brains are constructing false versions of the people we communicate with depending on the social network.

It is a well known phenomenon that people act differently online than they do in real life. Often with stronger opinions on topics than they would normally present in a verbal conversation. Therefore it’s not difficult to extrapolate this across many platforms of new communication. What if we are constructing false versions of ourselves, within each medium of conversation. When a friend converses with someone on Facebook it will most likely be in a slightly different way than in a verbal communication whether they realize it or not.